IN his popular column, ‘SILKS & SADDLES,’ published in the NORTH QUEENSLAND REGISTER, respected racing writer TERRY BUTTS reports on changes to the QTIS Scheme and reports exclusively on a QTIS Race Day being planned to rival the Magic Millions.
He also has a nice story on success enjoyed by the ‘First Lady of North Queensland’ racing, jockey Dawn Andrews last weekend.
Here is the Butts column:
QTIS RACE DAY PLANNED AT GOLD COAST ALONG SIMILAR LINES TO MAGIC MILLIONS
HISTORY dictates that various Government-sponsored racing incentive schemes have hardly been the success story they were meant to be – especially in Queensland.
But last week Racing Queensland (RQ) with the support of the Thoroughbred Breeders’ Queensland Association (TBQA), the Queensland Racehorse Owners’ Association (QROA), the Australian Trainers’ Association (Queensland branch) and the Queensland Jockeys’ Association (QJA) submitted to the Government, through Racing Minister Steve Dickson, a program to reinvigorate the Queensland Thoroughbred Investment Scheme (QTIS).
RQ concedes that the State’s thoroughbred breeding industry is under intense interstate competition and ‘currently faces some challenges’.
It says the new initiative will make it more attractive for Queensland owners and trainers to race in Queensland and share in increased returns on QTIS eligible horses.
RANGE OF NEW INITIATIVES TO PROVIDE GREATER RETURNS FROM QTIS
RACING Queensland aims to implement a range of new initiatives to provide greater returns to Queensland stakeholders already supporting the Scheme.
They include a QTIS race day, similar to the Magic Millions race day, where a race meeting solely for QTIS eligible horses will be conducted at the Gold Coast annually in March, to correspond with the March QTIS yearling sales.
The plan includes eight races carrying a prize purse of $100,000 and a $400,000 QTIS Weight-For-Age Cup, 1350m, to be run during the Queensland Winter Racing Carnival.
It will be for QTIS eligible horses only, up to four years of age, and will include a $15,000 bonus to the breeder of the winner.
The existing acceptance fee incurred by the QTIS horse in Queensland will be abolished. No acceptance fee will be charged to QTIS horses in future years, commencing with the 2015 two-year-old crop.
This is all good news and corresponds with the best year ever for Queensland-bred horses, according to RQ CEO Darren Condon.
But it might have been a tad too late for this year’s sales that opened on Monday.
Only 13 potential buyers were aboard the flight south – less than half the usual contingent from Townsville and numbers from Cairns were also well down on previous years, according to tour organiser Rob Koch.
But the best quip was from Wulguru trainer ‘Muttaburra’ Dickson’ who accepted an offer to travel down’ but said categorically: “I am not interested in bloody yearlings. I am looking for a tried horse”.
HOW MUCH OF $12MN ALLOCATED TO GREYHOUNDS CAME FROM LNP GOVERNMENT?
THE Queensland Government was obviously in a benevolent mood last week as it also announced, or confirmed, plans for a new dog track at Logan.
The Racing Minister announced $12 million would be spent on new greyhound facilities but he was cribbing a bit – as politicians tend to do.
The news, though welcomed, is hardly as great as it may have sounded.
Because $10 million of that amount has been sitting in Treasury since the sale of the Parklands track a few years ago – just waiting for the go ahead.
Can we expect similar good news for the Cluden track and stables? I hear it could be announced this week.
IT WON’T BE ALL BEER AND SKITTLES WHEN CONDON TALKS WORKCOVER IN NQ
RACING Queensland’s ‘top dog’, Darren Condon, makes another visit to Cluden this week – but it won’t be all beer and skittles.
The CEO will address, and attempt to woo local trainers, into accepting the proposed changes to Workcover premiums that is being sought by Brisbane trainers which is somewhat curiously supported by RQ – but hitherto totally rejected by country trainers.
Those trainers who have 50 starters a year and might employ one casual will see their Workcover premiums soar from $240 a year to $1,750 if the RQ proposals become law.
Little wonder there is such strong resistance in the bush.
FIRST LADY OF RACING IN NORTH GIVES HER YOUNGER RIVALS A LESSON
THE uncrowned ‘First Lady of Racing in the North’, ‘Dame’ Dawn Andrews, gave her much younger rivals weight, age and a good old flogging with a most notable and highly popular winning double at Home Hill last Saturday.
The unlikely named stablemates, Smutty’s Sister and her elder brother Smutty Johns, both saluted to give ‘Dame’ Dawn and her long-time partner John Warren their biggest thrill in 40 years.
They are the only horses in their stable. John raced their mother, the ill-fated Golden Rocket, which Dawn claims was one of the fastest horses she has ridden. She won a Maiden at the last Mingela race meeting but never got the chance to reveal her true ability.
And there has never been anyone else on the backs of the two Smuttys since the day they were born in the backyard of the couple’s Cluden stables.
Pentland- born Dawn, a former meat worker, was no doubt the oldest apprentice to win the North Queensland apprentices’ premiership in 1990. She was 35.
Six years previous she snared the then coveted Townsville Amateur Cup with a pick-up ride on heavily backed Royal Amura, which remains one of her biggest race day thrills.
And on Saturday the 59-year-old displayed all of the old dash and daring that made her a household name on the bush circuit years ago.
John and Dawn last year sold up their house and stables at Cluden and moved to their ‘purpose built’ abode that they painstakingly created at Major’s Creek.
“The horses just love it down here,” says Dawn. And added quickly “And so do we”.
So, why the name Smutty?
Well apparently John had wanted to call the colt Smarty John but the name was already registered.
It was at a time when a certain footballer of the same name was in the media for his reportedly unsavoury exploits off the field.
And that’s how they came up with Smutty.
A LITTLE NOSTALGIA AS MEMORIES WERE REVIVED ON DERBY DAY IN HONKERS
AND now a little bit of nostalgia – a wistful affection for a period in the past of your scribe.
Sunday was Hong Kong Derby Day – and I have fond memories of this event when it was run on the last day of the Hong Kong racing season – which up until the opening of Sha Tin was always the first Saturday of May.
Everyone has a favorite race and mine was calling Excel to win in 1968 Derby in the Louey colours (black and gold crossed sashes), a famous family in the colonial days of Honkers and owners of the Kowloon Motor Bus Co.
Excel was ridden by leading Australian amateur at the time, Terry Hore, who declared him a ‘certainty’ weeks before the race. He duly won by seven lengths.
And when the field thundered for home on Sunday at Sha Tin, Terry was laying back in a hospital bed at Taree NSW bravely fighting an incurable cancer.
So bad, so terribly sad.
There were few better amateur riders of his era and he is still fondly remembered in Hong Kong, the scene of his many triumphs.
He came home from Hong Kong and trained successfully at Hawkesbury, Doomben and more recently has been a based at Taree where he spent much of his spare time assisting the local legend Ross Stitt with whom he has forged a close friendship.
I was with Hore one day when the legendary Tommy Smith (who trained AJC Oaks winner Flirtatious for the Loueys, by the way) asked him how much a jockey could earn in Hong Kong as an amateur.
Hore replied: “Well, yesterday I was on the odds to $12,000 one of my mounts at Happy Valley.
“What’s that in Australian dollars?” asked TJ.
“I AM talking Aussie dollars,” replied Hore, to a totally dismayed ‘TJ’.
And the horse won, too.
I could tell you stories about Terry John Hore for days.
We have had an unending and enduring mateship from those heady days of Honkers that began 40 odd years ago.
Great bloke. Great mate. Great judge.
REMEMBERING THE EARLY DAYS OF ROY HIGGINS AT ALBURY IN LATE 50s
AND while Racing Who’s Who gathered at Flemington to farewell Roy Higgins last Thursday, I pondered over the days at Albury in the late 1950s when the then little known apprentice from Deniliquin started to ride winners.
There were no pre-race day acceptors in those days. You nominated and turned up at the track on race day.
It was also long before the days of jockey agents.
I well remember ringing trainers in border district to book rides for him and he would make the long trek over from Denny to Albury, Wagga, Wodonga or wherever.
Higgins didn’t last long in the bush – though he genuinely hated the city, at least initially.
I recall one day after a Friday meeting at Holbrook, at which he rode three winners for my old man (including the Cup on Bantam Prince).
After the last Higgins jumped in his newly acquired Holden and headed down the Hume Highway to Melbourne for his first ride in the city.
He was not worried about riding in Melbourne but confided that he was petrified of the Melbourne traffic and the five hour drive down on Friday night.
Talk about the man who came and conquered.
And you know – he never changed one iota.
And forever cherished the memories of those early days in the dust of Deniliquin where he was virtually raised and taught to ride by an old horseman named Jim Watters.
COLUMN COURTESY OF TERRY BUTTS AND THE NORTH QUEENSLAND REGISTER, one of Australia's leading rural newspapers.
TERRY BUTTS can be contacted by e-mailing: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.